— Sian Pattenden
It is remarkable how often The Beatles managed to entertain, fascinate and perplex their vast audience. Even at the height of Beatlemania their songs were outrageously original with even Bob Dylan managing to see past their bubblegum facade. Always a step ahead of both their competition and their fans, they couldn't stop flooring everyone. The Rubber Soul album was released at the end of 1965 was a major step forward but even it must have seemed quaint about nine months later when follow up Revolver came out. Rinse and repeat with Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band less than a year after that. From "Tomorrow Never Knows" to "Strawberry Fields Forever" to "A Day in the Life" and on to the B side of their number one hit "Hello Goodbye": all hail the genius of John Lennon.
"I Am the Walrus" has long been something many budding musicians have aspired to but even the most accomplished have failed to match its brilliance. Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne has carved out a very successful career based on a combination of an ease with hooks to die for and a seemingly unquenchable desire to ape those distinctive cellos which accompany this most unorthodox Beatle number. XTC (under the pseudonym The Dukes of Stratosphear) and Tears for Fears did their own "Walrus" parodies in the eighties — and rather flippin' great they are too. As if admitting that they weren't capable of Walruses of their own, a number of nineties' acts came out with well-intentioned but flawed covers. Let's take a look at them in order from worst to least unbearable.
Jim Carrey & George Martin: "I Am the Walrus"
From In My Life, a collection of dismal sessions led by The Beatles' producer and a series of MOR pop stars and the Hollywood A list. Martin revives the song's studio effects competently enough (while somehow managing to make it sound infinitely less inspired) but Carrey's decision to sing it as if impersonating the titular character he played in The Mask dooms it to hell. Amazingly enough, Goldie Hawn, Robin Williams and Celine Dion all surpassed Carrey's shoddy performance with absolute abominations of their own. Proof that, like all four Beatles, Martin was not above the dredges of bad taste.
Oingo Boingo: "I Am the Walrus"
One would think that a a music geek and film score wizard like Danny Elfman would be able to recreate and update sixties' acid rock but he isn't up to the task in this instance. He's probably guilty of being too close to the material to give it any kind of uniqueness as well as bring too preoccupied by his new-found day job of composing music for The Simpsons and all those Tim Burton films you enjoyed as a kid but actually kind of suck when you go back and watch them now. Proof that all the musical genius in the world won't cut it when you're trying to live up to the Fabs.
Oasis: "I Am the Walrus"
Awfully close to the Oingo Boingo version but the Gallaghers get bonus marks for having some spirit (or is it spirits?) in them. They would've been better off tackling something like "Day Tripper" or "Ticket to Ride" but it wouldn't be Oasis without at least some degree of overreach. Lots of thrashing guitars which speaks to the role that both grunge and shoegaze played in hardening the Oasis sound in the early nineties. Proof that The Beatles inspire a love of music but their fans are seldom inspired enough to create great music of their own.
Mike Fab-Gere & The Permissive Society: "I Am the Walrus"
The subject of this week's blog — clearly — so I needn't go into much in this instance but let's just say I could probably talk myself into giving it another listen. Eventually. Proof that if you're going to do a cover of a famous song, you might as well do so with some guts and bravado.
So, how does a guy with a business background who sold his company and made a bundle pull of the least bad version of "I Am the Walrus"? While it may help that Mike Southon, the alias of Mike Fab-Gere, would have been an impressionable teen when The Beatles first released it back in 1967, it should be noted that he's the same age Elfman as well as other members of Oingo Boingo. Being too reverential towards the Fab Four rarely results in excellent music being made. Luckily, there's little evidence of Southon marking out in similar fashion.
With enthusiasm, deep pockets and the shamelessness of a good old-fashioned promotions guy, Southon seems to have approached his dalliance with pop music with a kind of amateurish professionalism. He and The Permissive Society seem like little more than a glorified wedding band. An eight-minute feature up on YouTube starts with a quote proclaiming them to be "the best corporate entertainment I've ever seen". Another states they "adapted completely to our requirements". This PR video even trumpets them as "reliable". How very rock 'n' roll of them. Yet, there's something charming about Southon launching himself into this embarrassing alter-ego of an old hippie who's down for putting on a night of good time fun at a convention for financial planners taking place in Torquay. Had he ever played Singapore, it's easy to imagine Nick Leeson nodding along agreeably to his interpretation of "Roll Over Beethoven" just as he was pondering his latest con job.
"I think The Beatles should've done it that way in the first place frankly", asserts then-features editor of Smash Hits Alex Kadis, perhaps in an effort to overdo it for the cameras. "I think Mike Fab-Gere is a sign of the future". Honestly, she isn't wrong. Not only does this look ahead to the coming Britpop wave in a year's time but it also anticipates just how corporate everything has become in mainstream music. I don't think I would want to pay thousands of dollars to ride on a cruise ship with a half dozen legends of eighties' pop but there are people out there who are more than happy to do so.
"I Am the Walrus" wasn't quite a one off Mike Fab-Gere & The Permissive Society. A follow-up, "Summer of Love" which was co-written by Southon, came out the following year. It's actually the better of their two singles with a slightly more contemporary, techno-friendly sound and is the sort of thing punters actually might have wanted to dance to at one of their corporate or student union gigs. But the crowds weren't coming out to hear their original material; sixties revivalists wanted the real thing. Meanwhile, young people began flocking in the direction of a new generation of revivalists, one of whom had a version of "I Am the Walrus" of their own which wasn't much cop but they supposedly sounded like The Beatles and that was more than good enough.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Björk: "Human Behaviour"
Sian Pattenden is far less excited by this debut effort from the former Sugarcube than she is by Mike Fab-Gere and I'm not so sure she's wrong either. It's a curious choice to launch what would prove to be a highly successful solo career; I actually wasn't aware it even was a single until just recently. Björk had "Big Time Sensuality" and "Venus as a Boy" and "Violently Happy" all in her back pocket but they were all held over in favour of this? Somehow "Human Behaviour" managed to sneak in for a minor Top 40 hit but you have to think that something this unmemorable could have easily stalled her future prospects. Hotels and shopping centres have soft openings so why not a pop career as well? Saving her best stuff for later may have been risky but it all proved to be worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment